I feel like the truely happy aren't writing articles about how happy they are. Happiness in this way is a hidden thing amongst us.
I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
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Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#422Just take a mental note while reading this article, those people that moved out, probably had to move out because there was no place/work for them there. He is a wealthy man that owns a farm. Same story about someone who would be a bartender in a local pub, where he was just an employee serving local drunks, would be much sadder one.
His land is probably somewhat valuable compared to the local area, but West Wales is rural and the land is steep and hilly - it is really only good for raising sheep. And he's had it his whole life, so that value is meaningless to him.
However yes, you are right that many local people will have had to move away for work. Aside from Aberystwyth there's not a huge amount of work out that way. Lots of them will come down south to Cardiff and Swansea.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#423> I hear London is a place best avoided. I think living in a city would be terrible – people living on top of one another in great tower blocks
His voice of London seems to be relatively naive, since there are relatively few what I would call 'great tower blocks' here.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate the romance, but those of us who have children leave behind much more than stone walls we built in our 20s. He’s a 72 year old Batchelor who’s once stepped foot outside a Welsh valley. If happiness is a lobotomy then credit to us who don’t choose it.
Children as your legacy are no less consequential or meaningful than this man's stone walls. In the end you are grasping for empty meaning and purpose in the same way the farmer is, your children will perish, their children will perish, you will be forgotten and so will they like the rest of human existence. Our lives have no larger purpose or meaning beyond what ever we pretend gives meaning to your life, like child…
I made a conscious choice to not have children for personal reasons (deeply fucked up family and while I know I'm not callous and cruel like my father I simply couldn't rule it out enough to be willing to risk it).
I'm completely at peace with the thought that a century from now no-one will think about me one way or the other.
I mean statistically the chain of events that led to me ever existing as me was so small that after winning that hand, it's time to leave the table and enjoy it.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#425My partner was horrified to learn that I ate the same breakfast pretty much every morning for something like five or six years when I was a teenager. I always had cereal with milk. If I was extra hungry, I would have a second helping. Very rarely, I would try a different cereal brand, but I would always gravitate back to the same one. The funny thing is that at the time, I thought nothing of it! It was just a part of…
I'm 35 and pretty much have the same cereal for breakfast every week day. It's not even a wholesome cereal. Sometimes I'll mix it up and have toast.
People have very different ideas of what meals should be.
While we have similar ideas about breakfast, my girlfriend makes large ish but quick cooked meals for lunch, whereas for me lunch is always a light meal like a sandwich and a cup of tea. Dinner is the main event for me, a reward for a day's work and a way to unwind, whereas to her it's just to tide you over until bedtime. Living together reveals these things.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#426Ah, the simple life... My grandfather would take me along and we'd go to the neighbour to fetch eggs. He had a plastic bucket that he put them in with some old newspapers scraps in the bottom. I heard that before the war they didn't even need money. He'd simply bring a bucket of milk, and he'd get a bucket of eggs in return. But it was of course a lot simpler to bring money. It was far cheaper than in the store too.…
> One day, the grouse was seen perching atop the family house. When I told this to my grandmother, she went silent at first, and then she told me that it means someone will die in the family. This was of course terrifying news to me. But it also turned out to become true, because my grandfather also died that year. Do you actually believe the grouse perching on house was foreshadowing??
Does it matter? This is an old belief told from one generation to another. And in the instance of my family, it certainly turned out to be true.
Later that summer, during an especially hot and bright night (it's midnight sun where I come from because it's above the Arctic Circle) I saw that grouse on the tractor road further down the fields of the farm. It silhouetted in the midnight sun. It surprised me to see it standing in the middle of the road like that, like it was mocking me, so I got angry and chased it off the property.
It went off into the property of my grandmother's sister. And later that year, also she died.
But look, there's probably a reasonable explanation for it. When farmers grow old and sick, they often move away from their cabin, and in with their younger family and children further away, who take care of them. So when the house becomes derelict, wild and otherwise shy animals dare to move closer. But of course, old people would only move away from their farm if they were in a bad shape. And there's your omen and the logical explanation for it.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#427"This valley is cut in the shape of my heart". I've known farmers like him, bachelors who are mild mannered and love their lives and the extended family that comes with living an entire life in one valley. He maybe goes to Sunday service for socialization and the local pub to watch the game, and as long as his sheep are healthy and the sky does what it promises (because he knows the day before always if it will rain)…
I appreciate the romance, but those of us who have children leave behind much more than stone walls we built in our 20s. He’s a 72 year old Batchelor who’s once stepped foot outside a Welsh valley. If happiness is a lobotomy then credit to us who don’t choose it.
In enough generations, not one atom of your descendent's DNA will be specifically yours. The impact of your parenting will be diluted. The time spent on parenting shuts off an infinity of other options. I adore my children but the ways we enrich our culture and those around us matters just as much as our kids. And besides, why should a well-lived life look the same for him as for others?
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#428Seventy one sheep? And he makes a living? Something missing here.
Farmers in Wales are pretty canny and they have some unique advantages due to the hillyness. Leasing out land for mobile towers is one option, as someone said above, but I've also seen them group together to build small hydro power installs in their streams, or set up solar panels, and sell that power to the national grid. Sheep are pretty much all you can raise due to the geography of the place.
Wales is poor, outside the cities. You can still buy a house for £10k here (it'll be shit obviously). He'll likely get some subsidies and his pension now too, and I imagine he probably trades for some of his food. Eggs for fish, that sorta thing.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#429"This valley is cut in the shape of my heart". I've known farmers like him, bachelors who are mild mannered and love their lives and the extended family that comes with living an entire life in one valley. He maybe goes to Sunday service for socialization and the local pub to watch the game, and as long as his sheep are healthy and the sky does what it promises (because he knows the day before always if it will rain)…
This man is independent. The powers that are, hiss in horror at his sighting, because they want him in a cubicle and in debt.
I don't think the "powers that are" would care much about what this dude does, they probably have a lot on their plate already.
Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
These threads are always so entertaining. Someone will make up this pastoral romance while implying that the city life is somehow lacking. Then someone will do the opposite and the wars will begin. Very entertaining. For my part, I enjoy modal editors so I think vim is better than emacs and I like the GPL over BSD.
I think you misunderstood the issue people have here. It is not the pastoral Vs city life that is the issue. It is the OP assertion that this guy has been lobotomized because he is content with his life.
Yeah that was an offensive way to put his point for no reason.
It's also a failure of empathy on OP's part - we look at the world through our own lens but we should at least try to look at it through other peoples before accusing them of choosing "lobotomy".